Re: [Marxism] Israel is a death trap for the Israel working class

["NÃstor Gorojovsky" <nmgoro@xxxxxxxxx>]

2008/6/28, Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>  Cuba's independence apostle, Jose Marti, had a
>  great way of expressing this concept: "Patria es humanity", which
>  means, roughly, "Our homeland is humanity", which is pretty much
>  equivalent to "a world without borders".

I feel I must take exception to Walter's translation. Literally, the
concept by Martà was "Patria es humanidad", which translates
adequately as "Homeland is humanity". If MartÃ, who was a great writer
besides a strong politician and able soldier, had wanted to write "Our
homeland is humanity" he would have written "Nuestra patria es la
humanidad", which in Spanish is as different from "Patria es
humanidad" as "Our homeland is humanity" in English differs from
"Homeland is humanity".

What Martà wanted to stress was that the concrete struggle of the
Cuban people for national liberation was the _Cuban_ way to be
humanists, the single valid way to be a humanist, and this in
opposition to the abstraction of "citizen of the world" that was
already ravaging too many people of good will in MartÃ's times.

"Patria es humanidad" and "Socialism and this Nation are one and the
single thing" (Ho) mean the same, and in a sense they are quite the
opposite to "Our homeland is humanity". In fact, it would be better
translated as "Humanity is our homeland", so to say.

The above said, however, for semicolonial peoples. In the case of the
Israeli working class, Homeland opposes Humanity in the same way that
US American Patriotism opposes Humanity.


-- 

NÃstor Gorojovsky
El texto principal de este correo puede no ser de mi autorÃa
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